Games, Education, and Exploration

Generally speaking, I don't believe in educational games. That's not to say that I didn't learn a lot of facts from games like Number Muncher or Mario's Time Machine, but games like that are glorified flash cards. I think that we can add an engagement factor and arbitrary context for learning strictly declarative knowledge just fine. What I don't believe in is games that help, by their very nature, in learning procedural knowledge or higher level relationships between concepts.

This wouldn't be an issue if I wasn't currently taking a course that is, theoretically, about making games to serve just this purpose. Twice a week, I get to sit and listen to stories about all of the funding that my professor has earned from various institutions trying to make these sorts of games.

There are two simple reasons that I don't believe in educational games. One is transference. Virtually all games, especially games exploring abstract concepts, employ some sort of metaphor. This means that whatever skills or concepts are being taught, ultimately, are being learned with regards to the metaphor. Knowing what you're supposed to actually learn, then, requires additional interaction with the domain that the lessons are supposed to be applied to. Moreover, it requires an active effort to identify the pieces of the analogy in place. All of this means that it's going to be very hard to make the game itself educational unless it's included as a piece of a larger, directed education plan. Either that, or the game needs to actively mix in these elements, which risks breaking engagement.

Second is that, my professor, at least, seems to lack any sense of distinction between "play" and "playing a game". Play is self-directed and exploratory. It's a matter of expressing and recognizing and responding to patterns that we've observed in an environment where we have complete control. This lets us experiment with ideas and see where the rabbit hole leads us (even if it leads us astray). This is incredibly useful in learning because learning is an exploratory activity. On the other hand, games, by their very nature, are goal based.

The purpose of a game, in the mind of the player, is to complete the game. This can mean gaining mastery of the systems in play, or it can mean butting your head against it until something works and then moving on. In cases where a game requires real world knowledge, people are willing to play lip service to that knowledge without taking it to heart (just like students are willing to put the answer the professor wants on a test or a paper without believing a word of it). In short, all we want to learn from a game is how to beat the game.

Play is educational. Playing a game is not. What we need aren't educational games, but educational toys. Toys can be used in the construction of games to push people towards a specific goal, and games can have their purpose subverted and turned into toys to promote experimentation, but they are very different things.

Classroom Participation

Sitting in class right now and wishing more people would follow these simple guidelines.

Good Reasons to Speak Up in Class:
You're confused or curious about something that has been said.
A question has been asked (by a teacher or classmate) AND you feel you can supply an adequate answer/clarification.
You have thorough experience with the topic from a perspective other than what's being taught AND that perspective might legitimately enhance the understanding or appreciation of the class.
You have an especially fantastic joke to make.

Bad Reasons to Speak Up in Class:
You thought of something mildly amusing
You think, based on incomplete knowledge of the material, that your understanding of what is being presented is superior to that of your teacher and/or whatever experts (s)he is citing.
You simply don't like the way the teacher phrased something (from a nitpicky semantic point of view)
You've gone longer than you like without hearing yourself talk.